A variety of suggestions from Osho about how to be by the side of the dying.

Participate: meditate

Meditate while somebody dies; go, watch, see. Sit by the side of a dying man. Feel, participate in his death. Go in deep meditation with the dying man. And when a man is dying there is a possibility to have a taste of death, because when a man is dying he releases so much energy from the svadhishthan chakra…. He has to release because he is dying. The whole repressed energy on the svadhishthan chakra will be released because he is dying; without releasing it he will not be able to die. So when a man dies or a woman dies, don’t miss the opportunity.

If you are close by to a dying man, sit silently, meditate silently. When the man dies, in a sudden burst the energy will be all over, and you can have a taste of death. And that will give you a great relaxation.

Yes, death happens, but nobody dies.

Yes, death happens,

but in fact death never happens.

(Osho: The Tantra Experience)

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When someone is dying and his death is very very imminent…people who can go deep in meditation should sit around him, should help him to die, and should participate in his being when he disappears into nothing. When somebody disappears into nothing, great energy is released. The energy that was there surrounding him, is released. If you are in a silent space around him, you will go on a great trip. The man is naturally releasing great energy; if you can absorb that energy, you will also kind of die with him. And you will see the ultimate – the source and the goal, the beginning and the end.

(Osho: The Heart Sutra)

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Be silent; be respectful

When death is there you have to be very respectful because death is no ordinary phenomenon, it is the most extraordinary phenomenon in the world. Nothing is more mysterious than death.

Death reaches to the very centre of existence,

and when a man is dead

you are moving on sacred ground.

It is the holiest moment possible.

No, ordinary curiosities cannot be allowed. They are disrespectful. You have to be silent. If you can be silent when death is there you will suddenly see many things, because death is not just a person stopping breathing. Many things are happening. When a person dies his aura starts subsiding. If you are silent you can feel it – an energy force, a vital energy field, subsiding, getting back to the centre….. When it reaches the navel it becomes a concentrated energy or a concentrated light. If you are silent you can feel it and you will feel a pull. If you sit near a dead man you will feel as if a subtle breeze is blowing towards the dead man and you are being pulled. The dead man is contracting his whole life, the whole ‘field’ that he was.

(Osho: And the Flowers Showered)

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Watch and be with what is happening

Many things start happening around a dead man. If he loved a person very deeply, that means he had given a part of his life energy to that person, and when a person dies, immediately that part that he had given to another person leaves that person and moves to the dead man. That’s why when a loved one dies you feel that something has left you also; something in you has died also. A deep wound, a deep gap will exist now. …

When death happens, be silent. Watch! This is not the moment to talk about [death], this is the moment to be with it.

(Osho: And the Flowers Showered)

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Shower your love

[In response to a woman talking of being with her seriously ill mother]

These moments can become of immense revelation. So be loving! All that we have is love. Everything else is immaterial because everything else is on the outside; only love comes from the inside. Everything else – we can give money and things and presents…. We have not brought them with us; we have collected them here. We come naked but we come full of love. We come empty of everything else but we come full of love, overflowing.

So when we give our love, then only do we give.

That’s the gift, the real gift, and that can be given

only when death is standing there.

So never miss the opportunity.

She may survive but then you would have learned a lesson of tremendous importance. Then don’t forget that lesson, because nobody needs to be seriously ill to die! One can simply die of a heart attack, any moment. So never postpone love; you can postpone everything else but not love. And the man who never postpones love becomes love, and to become love is to know the divine.

Death is a great opportunity.

It throws you back into your love source.

So be around her and shower your love energy. If she dies, she dies in a great loving space; if she survives, she survives as a new being. Both ways it is perfectly good. Death doesn’t matter – all that matters is love.

So be loving. If she leaves, she leaves in great love; and when there is love there is no death. Who cares about death? One can die laughing! If one knows that one is loved, one can meet death with great celebration. If she dies she dies in tremendous peace. If she survives she will be a new person; she will have known your heart for the first time.

(Osho: The Tongue Tip Taste of Tao)

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Freedom; celebration

[In response to someone describing being with a dying man who said, at one stage, that it was as if there were two of him – one sick and one healthy.]

…. You may be with a friend or with a relative, your mother, your father. While they are dying, help them to realise two things: first, they are not the physical body, which is very simple for a dying man to recognise. Second – which is a little difficult, but if the man is able to recognise the first, there is a possibility of the second recognition too – that you are not even the second body; you are beyond both the bodies. You are pure freedom and pure consciousness.

If he had taken the second step, then you would have seen a miracle happening around him something, not just silence, but something more alive, something belonging to eternity, to immortality. And all of you who were present there would have been overwhelmed with gratitude that this death has not been a time of mourning, but it has become a moment of celebration.

If you can transform a death into a moment of celebration

you have helped your friend, your mother, your father,

your brother, your wife, your husband.

You have given them the greatest gift that is possible in existence.

… This is the moment when he should be made fully aware of death, so acutely and so impeccably aware that pure consciousness is experienced. That moment has become a moment of great victory. Now there is no death for him, but only eternal life.

(Osho: The Razor’s Edge)

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‘Die’ with the dying person

Whenever there is a death, go close, get involved, allow it and let it happen to you. When your father is dying, when his breathing is becoming hard, feel it and empathise with him. Feel what he is feeling, become him, and let death happen to you too. You will be immensely benefited. You will be thankful to your father for his life and for his death too. He gave you much when he was alive and he gave you even more when he died. When your woman is dying, when your man is dying, be close. Feel the heartbeat of a dying friend, a lover or a beloved. Let that experience become your experience too.

Slowly slowly, knowing death in its many aspects,

you will come to recognise it as a friend,

not as an enemy;

as a great rest and relaxation.

It is not against life. It is only because of death that life is possible. Without death, life would not be possible.

(Osho: The Razor’s Edge)

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Teaching breath-watching

[In response to someone asking how to help her dying grandmother who is ‘completely unaware and very scared.’]

Just teach her a little meditation: watching the breath. With her lying down on the bed, just sit by her side and put your hand on her head. Become very quiet and silent and meditative. Meditation is contagious: if you are really meditative it can be transferred. So sit by her side, become completely silent, put your hand on her head and explain to her that she should just watch the breath – the breath going in and the breath going out. Tell her that if she can watch this breath going in and going out, she will become aware that she is not this body and she is not this breath either. She is the one who is watching, and that watcher never dies; it is immortal.

The moment we know our witness we are immortals.

The best and the shortest way to know

is to watch your breath because breath

is the bridge that joins the body with the soul.

If you are watching the breath you are already on the other shore. Watching the breath means that you are watching the bridge – the bridge that joins you with the body. The body is left far behind. Between you and the body is the breath, and you are watching the breath. Because you are watching you are separate from it. You can watch a thing only if you are separate from it. So if in these last days you can help her to watch, that will be the greatest gift that you can give to her before she leaves because then she can leave in perfect silence, in absolute cool and collectedness – and that is the real way to die.

(Osho: The Madman’s Guide to Enlightenment)

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Light, love, happiness and music

[In response to a woman whose partner is dying of a brain tumour but who is still conscious. She asks: Is there anything I can do to help him?]

Help him to die meditatively. Meditation is a bridge between life and death. It is of immense value while one is alive and it is also of immense value while one is dying. If you meditate while alive it keeps you cool and detached; you remain the centre of the cyclone. When one is dying, then the cyclone is at its peak. If one can still be centred, then there will be no need to be born again; the purpose of life is fulfilled. So just go and help him to be silent.

Put music on – classical music will be of immense help – and tell him just to listen to the music. Tell him just to watch his breath. Tell him to relax and not to fight with death, because death too is divine.

Tell him to relax. Tell him to allow death to possess him. Tell him to invite death; tell him to think of death not as a foe but as a friend.

Be as happy as you can be by his side; that is the only way to say good-bye to somebody who is dying. The man needs a little light. The man is going on a long journey – he needs people to give him a good-bye in celebration.

Let there be music, let there be light

and let there be laughter.

Sing songs, be loving

and help him feel

that he is moving into another kind of life

– death is only a door.

Only old garments are being discarded and he will have better garments. If he can go laughing, then you really helped him. Be by his side and help in any way you can.

(Osho: Don’t Look before You Leap)

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Transmitting your silence and peacefulness

If somebody is dying to whom you are closely related – your father, your mother, your wife, your husband, your child or your friend – and you would like to do something to take part in it…. The person is dying and you are alive – you can sit by the side of the person; you can put your hand on his heart or hold his hands and just be silent and peaceful. Your peace and your silence will be transferred, transmitted. If you can help the person to die peacefully and silently, you have done a beautiful act and a virtuous act. You may feel a little weak, tired or exhausted but that is nothing; just a little rest and you will be perfectly okay.

So from your side you can help the dying person to move on to a better plane of life, but for that you have to be silent and you have to be peaceful. Then you are on a higher plane and energy can flow.

Energy flows in the same way water flows – downward. It cannot flow upwards. So remember it – that in both ways energy can be exchanged.